Between Casual and Complicated
by kaill
Summary: Brooke Davis was into causal dating with multiple men at the same time. Her newest boy toy, Clay Evans, turns out not to be like her past lovers, and she's not exactly setting him straight, enjoying the fact Clay wants more than just sex. Then Lucas Scott, an aspiring author she's been having a fling with for months, seems to want more out of their relationship as well. (B/L/C)


Rich brown eyes inspected the peachy tone that was smoothly painted over Brooke Davis' lips in front of her vanity mirror. The 23 year old slowly brought her hand up to her mouth to wipe away any imperfections she found around her lips. Then she swiftly made sure her growing bangs were swept off to one side.

"You going out tonight? I thought you didn't have any of your boys scheduled in." A red head remarked with a coyness in her voice.

The voice belonged to Brooke's best friend from college, Rachel Gatina. They met at a sorority party, which Rachel had been kicked out of because she would butt heads with the house leader almost all the time. Rachel ended up failing all of her classes due to her partying and late nights, while Brooke tried hard to stay on task with her studies and juggling a thriving social life. Most of her high school years weren't focused on a successful future. Instead, her main goal was making a name for herself among any cute boy who caught her attention. It turned out that the two girls were practically the same and now they lived in a cozy apartment together.

Brooke rolled her eyes until she caught her glance in the mirror. "Nathan called me during work. He asked me if I wanted to meet up." She explained with a shrug of her shoulders before a bold grin graced her lips. "And when have I ever said 'no' to Nathan Scott?"

"Never." Rachel stated simply as she began pulling her fingers through her long straightened hair. "What do you think he wants?"

"What he always done when we set up dates." Brooke's expression remained over her face.

Rachel returned the grin. "Which means I'll be having the apartment to myself tonight."

"Sounds like it." Brooke said as she stood up and then made sure her sleek black dress didn't have any wrinkles in the fabric.

Then she walked over to her bed to grab her black and gold clutch handbag and her phone, checking the time on the device before dropping it into the clutch.

With a little frustrated sigh, Brooke decided that she had everything that she needed. If she was going to go back to Nathan's she could either slip her dress back on to go home in or dig through his wardrobe to find something that would actually fit her small frame - which was way smaller than the tall athlete's.

She turned around to go into her closet, digging through her messy pile of shoes until she found her favorite gold heels. Then when her hands were full she carried everything out to the apartment door, slipping on the first shoe carefully so she wouldn't stumble.

"Don't be too slutty!" Rachel called out to her, still in Brooke's bedroom.

"I'm not the slut. You are, Rach." Brooke reminded her in a playful tone as she slipped on her other heeled shoe.

"Don't keep one of your toys waiting, bitch!"

The brunette let out a small laugh before opening the door and leaving. She walked down the hall to the apartment complex until she had to wait for the elevator to stop at her floor before getting on it and riding it down to the main level.

Outside, as she was now accustomed to seeing, there was a car and a driver waiting to come and pick her up. Nathan Scott always aimed to please and Brooke could easily say that he's never failed in that department.

Both Brooke and Nathan lived in the same town of Tree Hill growing up, which meant going through school together until they were allowed to pick where they wanted to go to college. They didn't come together to plan on ending up in the same city. It just happened that way. Brooke never thought that she'd spend

Nathan happened to be the boy that Brooke lost her virginity to. She was a sophomore in high school when she decided that she was ready to lose her virginity. At only 15 years old at that time, Brooke wasn't in a serious relationship or in love with any boy at all. Sure, she had her infatuations but none of those boys would want to have sex with a sophomore. Nathan was added to the equation because he was someone who was her friend and she could trust him.

As their first time went, everything about it was awkward and felt uncomfortable. Brooke learned that sex wasn't as sexy as movies made it out to be. She enjoyed the feeling of Nathan's larger hands sliding and caressing her bare skin, but she wasn't enjoying how she didn't have the time to give anything back to the boy on top of her. She didn't hate sex, she knew she had much more to learn.

During her junior and senior years, Brooke Davis had become somewhat of name spoken in boys locker rooms and whispered between groups of gossiping girls in the hallways. Sex turned into something Brooke almost couldn't get enough of. Parties were mainly the place Brooke knew she'd be drunkenly finding an equally drunk boy to fool around with.

Nathan hadn't been that boy for her in those last two years. Somehow Nathan was dating a girl named Peyton Sawyer, a girl who Brooke couldn't believe Nathan was actually with. They had absolutely nothing in common. Knowing Nathan, Brooke could only assume they had quite the active sex life.

They remained friends, which Brooke was happy about. Most of the boys in her life were just sex partners. There was no emotional attachments, not that Brooke wanted that. She was still young and she wanted to be young for as long as she could.

Her relationship with Nathan Scott now was purely casual. Whenever they felt like going out they did and their nights together usually always ended up with sex. They both knew each other and their bodies, so why not? It was an agreement that both young adults agreed on.

Nathan was a hopeful for the NBA draft pick. Ever since he was a child Nathan loved basketball more than anything in the world. He probably still did. He didn't want an exclusive relationship, due to the fact his high school romance made him miserable and in college he had too many flings to count. His main focus was his career.

The car drove up to the front of a restaurant where they have shared many nights like this together. Brooke wasn't surprised when Nathan called her and asked her to meet him here. She smiled and thanked the driver, who told her that Mr. Scott already paid the fare and the tip. Nathan must have been in a particularly good mood tonight so Brooke felt like she could pay Nathan very fairly after dinner.

After walking into the restaurant Brooke walked past the people waiting for table to be available. There was a young busboy standing behind the podium, who Brooke sent a flirtatious mile to because she knew he had a little crush on her and she thought it was cute when he got flustered.

"Has Mr. Scott checked in yet?" Brooke asked, running her tongue along the top of her bottom row of teeth.

The busboy looked up, cheeks already tinting a rosy pink. He quickly nodded his head. "Y-yes, Ma'am."

"Marvin, I already told you to call me 'Brooke'. I'm a bit young to be called 'Ma'am', right?" She let out a chuckle that made the boy's smile even wider.

"S-sorry, Ma'am - I mean, Brooke." He looked down in embarrassment and shame. "Sorry."

"You are such a sweetheart. If I had a younger sister if definitely set you two up." Brooke offered him as Marvin looked up which table Nathan was at, and was hiding his face from the gorgeous B. Davis. Nathan had a usual reserved table so both him and Brooke already knew where she'd be going next.

"Thanks-s. Mr. Scott is at table 14." Marvin nodded over to where the main dining area was.

Brooke thanked him, thinking about kissing his cheek but she knew she embarrassed him enough so she smiled instead.

Her eyes scanned the large room until they caught the back of tall man with dark hair. She took in a confident breath and looked down to her dress, adjusting the straps to give her chest some more lift before walking over to the table.

Brooke went up behind Nathan and placed her arm across his shoulders. "Hey, Nate." She greeted him with a smile at the same time he turned to stand up.

"Thanks for meeting me on short notice, Brooke." He told her as one arm enveloped her entire body and pressed it against his hard frame, his hand openly rubbing up and down her back.

"I'll always make time for you." She scrunched her face up a bit as the scent of his cologne tickled at her nose.

Then she walked back to the opposite side of the table and sat down in the chair with a content sigh, one leg crossing over the other underneath the table.

He let out a soft chuckle at that before licking over his lips, Brooke's eyes narrowing in on them, reading his signal. She ran her foot over his dress pants and Nathan cleared his throat and pulled away. He never did that before.

"Actually, the reason I called you was because I need to talk to you about something." Nathan joined his hands on the table, his jaw flexing as he clenched his teeth together.

Brooke raised her brow, completely clueless as to what Nathan was getting at. "Um, okay?"

There was a harsh sinking feeling in Brooke's stomach at the thought that maybe, after all these years together and the hook-ups, that Nathan might want to have a real relationship. She cared about Nathan a lot but she wasn't in love with the aspiring basketball player.

This wouldn't be the first time a causal relationship wanted to turn into something more. Brooke found it easy to sometimes turn down the proposal of being exclusive. Turning down Nathan wasn't going to be the same.

She reached forward to take on if his hands with hers, stroking the back of his hand. "Nathan, you're a great guy and really, really, great in bed but we both agreed that we didn't want anything more with each other."

"No," Nathan interrupted with a shake of his head, "it's not that, Brooke."

"Oh." She dropped Nathan's hand and sat back. "Then what is it?"

"Um, do you remember Haley James? From high school?"

She almost answered that she had no clue who Haley James even was but then she remembered that Haley was the only reason why Brooke was able to graduate with all of her friends. Brooke and Haley were never friends. Haley actually wasn't a fan of Brooke's and the girls were complete opposites. While Brooke was having the time of her life - which is what she thought she was doing at the time - Haley was at home reading books and whatever else Brooke assumed of the smartest girl in school. So, when Haley was assigned to help Brooke out with her Calculus, Brooke was surprised when Haley didn't reject the teacher's idea. Haley helped Brooke, who was often being difficult with her - because she thought Calculus was tough and boring or because she was dealing with repercussions from previous nights of parties. Once graduation hit, all Brooke did was thank Haley. They never spoke again after that.

Now, why would Nathan Scott bring up Haley James after all these years?

Brooke reached forward for the glass of water that was in front of her, the ice almost completely melted away. "Vaguely. Why?" She tipped the glass to her lips and slowly sipped at the contents.

"Well, I ran into her this morning when I went out for some groceries." As he spoke a smile broke out on his face and his eyes seemed to light up. "Anyway, I sort of had a crush on her in high school and-"

"You had a thing for the tutor girl and you never told me?" Brooke exclaimed, still clearly in shock that Nathan's never mentioned it before. Surely, she would have told Haley the nicer things about Nathan than he actually known for. Haley believing them would have been an entirely different story. "You do know that she couldn't stand you in high school, right?"

"Yeah, Brooke, I'm aware of that but I'm not that guy anymore. At least, I can prove to her that I'm not that guy anymore."

"Hmm, I don't think so. You're still playing basketball and having sexual relationships with girls who you aren't in actual relationships with." Brooke told him with a slight teasing in her tone. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Plus, the jock and the nerd thing is so high school. What's Haley doing now?"

"She's a teacher, a high school teacher to be exact. She loves it a lot." Nathan told her as he reminisced about the short time he spent being around Haley James again.

"So, let me get this straight. You asked me out to dinner to tell me that you have a crush on this girl still?" She paused as Nathan nodded his head in agreement.

"Yeah, and if I want to be seen as more mature than I used to be I can't exactly be hooking up with random girls, not that you are a random girl in anyway. It's not just for Haley. There's going to be scouts wanting to see me and I'm sure nobody wants to deal with a playboy as a hopeful NBA success story."

Brooke nodded, understanding what Nathan was telling her even though she couldn't help but wonder where that's left her in all of these changes Nathan suddenly wanted to make in his life for his future, which she honestly hoped was brighter. "We're done, aren't we? No more dinners. No more sex."

That was when Nathan dropped his smile. Then he reached over for Brooke's hand that time. "We can still have dinners together as friends but, yeah, we shouldn't be sleeping together anymore. Don't get me wrong, it's been incredible but we were strictly casual anyway."

"We had some great nights together." Brooke hummed as a smile came across her lips. Nathan was right on the mark that their sex life together had been pretty incredible. As much as she was going to miss that, she was glad that they could remain adult about this, and still keep their friendship. "Then, as your friend, I demand that you keep me up to date on whatever this is with Haley."

Nathan let out a laugh, bringing Brooke's hand up to his mouth and softly kissing her hand before he let it go, letting go of their arrangement all at the same time. "I knew you'd be cool about this. That's what I like about you, Brooke. You're not one of those girls who clutch onto some guy just because you're having sex."

"Yeah, that's me." Brooke said.

After Nathan talked Brooke into staying for dinner, the two ate and continued chatting about Nathan's revelation that he kept in for so long. Brooke has never seen Nathan so tied up on one girl before. She knew every hook up that Nathan's ever had as well, never minding hearing Nathan talk about them. There was also the added bonus that Brooke could actually see Haley and Nathan together in a serious relationship, if Nathan's plan worked. Haley would have her blessing to date Nathan, unlike Peyton.

Nathan offered to call up a driver to take her home after paying for their meal and walking Brooke out. Brooke made other plans while Nathan stepped out to use the bathroom so she politely declined his offer.

As she now stood outside, without Nathan, she went through the text messages on her phone until she found the name she was looking for. Putting her phone to her ear, she waited until her 'Plan B' picked up.

"Hey, Broody, what are you up to tonight?" Brooke asked while walking down the sidewalk so she could pin down a taxi to take her to her next hopeful stop.

She pressed her phone to her ear with her shoulder as the man answered her. "Well, if you want to take a break from slaving over your novel, I can visit and give you a massage. I'm certain you're sore from being hunched over your laptop for hours."

The brunette grinned at the same time she was able to get a taxi to stop for her. She reached for the door and spoke into the phone again. "i knew you'd see it my way. I'll be there in a half hour."

* * *

 **AN:** After a 10 hour work day with my brain thinking of story ideas, this one came about! I haven't been active on this account for about four years now but I'm actually really excited to get into writing again (with my new favorite love triangle/pairing...) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story. If you read _Wake Me Up_ , I've brought that story back from the dead too :)


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